The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

Abstract: Discussion of Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which contains diverse flora and fauna and is threatened by oil development.

There's a place which often inspires analogies to the Serengeti in Africa. This place has been described as the last great wilderness. Native Americans continue to live the land the same way they have done for 15,000 years. The area is not Yellowstone, not the Grand Canyon; it is the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska (ANWR). A great migration takes place each year when a caribou herd of over 150,000 animals migrates from their wintering grounds in Canada to the coastal plain of the refuge on the Beaufort Sea. The scene looks much like a "Loin King" type scene as the herd's individuals move across the refuge's grassy plain in a scene not seen elsewhere since the buffalo moved across the Great Plains. But the caribou are not the only animals in the refuge. Also are muskoxen, snow geese, polar and brown bears, wolves, wolverines, moose, Dall sheep, tundra swans, and some 150 other species of birds including golden and bald eagles, and other bird species flying in from as far as China, the Antarctic, Africa, and Chile.

But this area, called a "world-class natural area" by the North Slope Borough, and Arctic Slope Regional Corporation (1995), is precisely where the oil industry wants to drill for oil, thereby destroying this wilderness and the Native Americans who live there.

What is the ANWR?

The refuge is the only unprotected arctic coastline area in America. Consisting of 19 million acres, an area the size of South Carolina, the refuge has 125 miles of coastline. It is located in the far northeasternmost corner of Alaska, with Prudehoe Bay oil field to the West, Canada to the east. This "Coastal Plain" is the biological heart of the refuge, the caribou core calving grounds, and precisely where the oil industry wants to build the next great oil field. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service describes the refuge as "protect(ing) in undisturbed condition, the complete spectrum of arctic and sub-arctic ecosystems."

Current Proposals

The industry, led in Congress by Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) has inserted language into the current federal budget which includes revenues from the leasing of the refuge to the oil industry. (The Northern Line, 1995) This is the same Rep. Don Young who brandished a knife on the House floor and who insisted steel-jaw traps *aren't* painful and proceeded to close his own hand into a trap, where he left it during a hearing in Congress. (Newsweek 1995) In fact, these proposals caused Newsweek to ask, "What's next, oil drilling in Yellowstone?"

Now, what are the chances of finding oil in the ANWR? Interior Department figures give finding an economically recoverable amount of oil only an 18% chance. That's less than a one in five chance of finding an economically recoverable amount of oil!

Impacts: Environmental

What will happen to the environment when we allow drilling? according to The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge Report (1995),

The arctic Refuge Costal Plain is unique among refuges and parks in the United States. ... Impacts from development would be major, and ... measures to reduce or remediate those impacts are uncertain. For its biological richness, undisturbed vastness, and fragility as an arctic ecosystem, the coastal plain of the ANWR is a national treasure, and would be irreparably altered by development. [ellipsis mine]

Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt puts it more bluntly before Senate hearings:

It is easy to see why so many Americans want this special place protected. It is harder to understand why we would want to develop it--because, of the may arguments that have been made for development, none has stood the test of time.... There was no question then (in the 1980s) that full-scale development would devastate the area's wilderness character, and there is no reason to doubt that result now." [ellipsis mine]

Clearly, drilling's impacts will be adverse. Drilling will disrupt caribou calving grounds. Disruption of the caribou calving grounds results in animal stress, lower animal and calf weights, and most importantly, lower calf numbers, as confirmed by studies at nearby Prudehoe Bay. These studies, partially reprinted by the Northern Alaska Environmental Center, show that in 1989, 63% of cows gave birth in undeveloped areas. But in developed areas, that number was only 29%. Clearly, oil development is linked to lower numbers of caribou, possibly devastating the herd. But the effects would extend to the other animals I mentioned earlier as well. Clearly, allowing the ANWR to be opened for oil development would devastate the area.

Impacts: Gwich'en Indians

7,000 Gwich'en Indians (Yes, old fashioned Native Amreicans) currently live in the refuge and they depend on the caribou for their survival, much like the Plains Indians depended on the buffalo before whites forced them out. The Gwich'en, the world's northernmost Indians, consider the area sacred ground. Development would force the Gwich'en from their sacred ground on which they have lived for 15,000 years by devastating the caribou. Testified Gwich'en elder Jonathan Solomon in Congress in 1988:

Our people are caribou people. Caribou provides not only food and materials for our people, but also our spiritual life... Without caribou, who are we? What do we have to offer our children? [ellipsis original]

The Gwich'en are unified in their opposition to drilling.

Concluding Remarks

So in conclusion, we can see that the ANWR is our last great wilderness, but it could be sacrificed soon if Congress gets its way. This oil drilling or development, spearheaded by a congressman who brandishes a knife on the house floor, would devastate the ANWR's unique natural environment, as well as the Gwich'en Indians. Again, Bruce Babbitt, testifies:

Recognition of the unique wilderness character of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and of the refuge's coastal plain, goes back a long way. In 1959, Fred Seaton, the Eisenhower Administration Interior Secretary testified before the Senate calling the proposed Arctic National Wildlife Range, 'one of the most magnificent wildlife and wilderness areas in North America... a wilderness not duplicated elsewhere.'

Another of my predecessors, Cecil Andrus, in 1978, encapsulated it most eloquently: `In some places such as the Arctic Refuge, the wildlife and natural values are so magnificent and so enduring that they transcend the value of any mineral that may lie beneath the surface. Such minerals are finite. Production inevitably means changes whose impacts will be measured in geologic time in order to gain marginal benefits that may last a few years.' It was true then!, Mr. Chairman, and it remains true today. [ellipsis original]

Just as we don't dam the Grand Canyon, or sell the Indiana Dunes to steel companies, we don't allow oil drilling in the ANWR, and that's how it should be forever. Clearly, drilling in the ANWR would be devastating.